For six months, Domingo Garcia painstakingly tried to put together a coalition among Dallas City Council members in support of a redistricting map that would put one or two more Hispanic faces on the council.

All of that was undone Wednesday, when council alliances shifted and so did the map they adopted. Garcia says it not only won't add a Hispanic seat, but might subtract one. He says District 2, Pauline Medrano's seat, could become in jeopardy.

He and other political leaders who are Hispanics are planning to take the fight now to the Department of Justice and the courthouse. At tonight's first meeting of the "Latino Redistricting Task Force," they set about creating a plan of action.

Among those at the meeting at Tejano's on Davis Street were council members Monica Alonzo and Scott Griggs.

Griggs reiterated his grievances over the process that led to the adopted map, in which Mayor Mike Rawlings had Delia Jasso and Tennell Atkins put together a compromise map behind closed doors, leaving Griggs out of the process while they drew him out of his district.

"It was a very rushed process," said Griggs. He said the new District 3 draws together elements of the city that don't belong together while separating some that do, such as areas in the Kiest Corridor.

Garcia, who organized the meeting, said they could either sit and do nothing, gripe and complaint, or take action. And the crowd of several dozen eagerly embraced the latter.

He said they needed to raise $100,000 to fight what he predicted would be $2 million or more that the city will spend on attorneys "to defend an illegal map."

He said they needed to a letter writing campaign to send 1,000 letters, emails and phone messages to the Department of Justice.